The Arcade Professional has a real arcade look and feel to it.

Based on the controllers from an actual arcade game, the Professional comes in a shiny black metal case.

It sits on a hard surface or on your lap with a foam base to protect your parents' best coffee table.

Just like an arcade machine there are two fire buttons - useful in games like Scramble where you have to bomb as well as fire.

The Arcade Pro is as responsive as any of the other sticks tested. The fire buttons are true arcade style alien blasters - as large as five pence pieces and dish shaped to avoid "finger-slip" - that dreaded affliction known to all vid kids!

The Arcade Professional can be opened up to alter the stick's movement - four directions for maze games and eight directions for shoot-'em-ups.

THE VERDICT

Robust stick which can actually be repaired unlike some of the plastic throw-away sticks on sale. This advantage, however, makes the Arcade Pro dearer at £38.50. Nice design - will make your friends go green with envy!

PRICE: £38.50
SUPPLIER: Emax Computing

Emax Computing's Arcade Professional comes with a truly awesome warning: 'This panel,' you are told, 'is a professional module. It is not a toy.' Well, if it isn't a toy it isn't going to sell very well, because the number of people I know who make a living playing arcade games is pretty small.

The Arcade Professional is an enormous module, as befits its price. The base measures about a foot across, dwarfing the stick itself. The 'non-slip foam base' doesn't prevent the module from roaming around the table when you get excited.

Control is very disappointing; the steel stick is too loose in the base and, consequently, response time is slow. What is worse is that the stick is in the ideal position for left-handers. I have nothing against these people, but I do believe that the right-handed are in the majority, even among the arcade professionals.

BATTLEFIELD JOYSTICK

Joysticks are your most immediate connection with any game you play - the man-machine interface. The melting joystick makes a nice image for an advertiser who's suggesting that his games can beat anything, but do joysticks in real life really stand up to the beating they receive, are they tough enough for the job, do they move well, are the handles right, will the buttons fire?

The CRASH reviewing team settled down for a weekend of joystick bashing on several types and makes, and here we look at the results...

There are now many makes of joystick available, and almost as many types as there are makes. Each boasts design innovations so that it is better than all the others - and they come in a range of prices too. We all know that joysticks on arcade machines take a battering, so too do those at home. Do they stand up? We tested 19 joysticks from well known manufacturers to see how they all compared.

A joystick must be able to withstand games that require fast and repeated movement, so what better than Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon? We used the Commodore version of the game because it is more violent than the Spectrum! But it isn't only toughness; joysticks must also be capable of fine and positive movement, comfortable to use with sensible fire buttons. Several arcade skill games were used to test four major points for both the stick action and the fire button action.

TRAVEL means the maximum movement between opposite poles (e.g. up/down) on the stick, and how far the fire button had to be depressed. On stick action over 1.5 inches was considered to be very long. Oddly, some of the short sticks had longer to travel than the taller sticks.

ACTION FORCE means the amount of hand or finger pressure required to keep the stick pressed over or the fire button down.

REACTION SPEED indicates how fast contact is made, how quickly the action affects the game, and how well rapid movements can be made (especially rapid fire buttons).

RESPONSE/FEEDBACK indicates how positive the stick or fire action feels and whether there is any physical or audible feedback to tell the player that contact has been made.

ERGONOMICS how useful is the stick for hand held playing, and how well does it operate on a table top. Is the stick well designed for comfort, ease of fire action and general stability.

After preliminary testing, the joysticks all went through ten minutes of the Decathlon to see how long they were likely to stand up to use. During this test, some joysticks broke.

Finally, all the sticks have 9 pin D connectors and are Atari compatible on the pin outs. They all need an interface of one sort or another to work with the Spectrum (except the clip-ons). Some offer 2 independent fire actions, but these only work with either a Cambridge interface or the programmable Comcon from Frei Ltd., which was the interface used for this test.

Each joystick review is split into two halves; firstly a brief technical breakdown; secondly the review team's report.

ARCADE PROFESSIONAL

Supplier: Euromax Electronics Ltd., Pinfold Lane Industrial Estate, Bridlington, N. Humberside. Tel. (0282) 602541

Price: £28.95

Lever Action: Short and strong steel shaft rotating in ball point bush compressed spring and nylon washer for self-centering action. 4 industry standard V3 lever operated microswitches actuated by nylon bush. Extra plastic end stop bush for 8 or 4 way action.

Fire Action: 2 large body-mounted arcade style round fire buttons.

Ergonomics: Large arcade style console for two hand operation. Heavy metal base with foam pad for stable table top use. Console top out of GRP with silver flake black high-gloss paint.

Lead: Plastic moulded D type connector. Non retaining round grommet.

Weak point: None

STICK ACTION

Travel: medium to long
Action force: light.
Reaction speed: instant.
Response/feedback: good to excellent, very positive.

FIRE ACTION

Travel: medium to long.
Action force: light.
Reaction speed: very fast - excellent for rapid fire.
Response/feedback: good, solid feel and clunky feedback.

Ergonomics: handheld - you've got to be joking! It's huge! the large sized arcade style box makes it excellently stable and it has a low centre of gravity, hardly moves at all. Nice big arcade style fire buttons make life easy.

Life expectancy: very good, it feels solid. Everyone felt this was just about the best on a hard game.